Free Snow Falling on Bluegrass by Molly Harper Page A

he’d graciously offered us as sanctuary when the unhappy event occurred.
    My boys wouldn’t have screamed and worried about perishables. They would have already established a hierarchy based on useful skill sets and improvised a backup generator out of a paper clip and coconut water. So in their honor, I compared this situation to the Donner Party and started a debate over who should be on the menu first.
    â€œI say we eat Gina first,” I said, pointing at her.
    â€œDon’t be silly.” Sadie sniffed. “Gina hardly has any meat on her bones. If anything, we go for Bonnie first. She’s small, but she never exercises, like veal.”
    Josh covered his face with his hands. “I cannot believe this conversation is taking place.”
    Oddly enough, my liberal use of snark seemed to make the others relax a bit. Whether it was because of my return to my normal office attitude or my admitting and then laughing at the worst-case scenarios, I wasn’t sure. But eventually the grumbling turned to the usual patter we’d hear around the office on days when we weren’t trapped together like victims of Stephen King’s imagination. And the dining room was starting to look like a sultan’s tree house, which was sort of fun.
    â€œYou know, this could lead to any number of horror movie scenarios,” I mused. “Angry ghosts of people who bumped off their families while staying in the hotel. Crazy backwoods serial killer who uses a farm implement to stalk us one by one. One of us develops snow madness and starts killing everyone off while singing spooky nursery rhymes.
    Sadie’s head popped up from the nest of blankets she was trying to wrangle. “Kelsey?”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œPlease stop trying to make us feel better.”
    But still, she laughed, as did Bonnie and Dorie Ann and Will, plus a familiar husky voice that I had not heard in quite some time. I looked up to see Charlie standing in the doorway with a pile of forest-green thermal blankets in his arms, shoulders shaking as he joined in with the rest of us. Our eyes connected, and I felt a little bit of the weight on my chest ease. My lips parted, whether to smile or speak I didn’t know. But before I could decide, Luke called my name. “Kelsey? Would you mind coming into the kitchen and helping me check over the pantry?”
    The spell was broken.
    â€œSure,” I said. Charlie gave me a little shrug as I followed Luke through the industrial kitchen to a large closet tucked into the back wall.
    â€œWe’re only stocked for the slow season, so it’s not going to be much of a selection,” he said, grunting as he yanked the door out of place.
    I eyed the floor-to-ceiling display of canned fruits and veggies, soups, individual packs of crackers, industrial-size jars of peanut butter, and granola. “I think our definitions of ‘not much’ are very different.”
    â€œI meant fresh-food-wise,” he amended. Of course he did. Look at the guy, I told myself, he probably lived on wheat germ and those protein bars that taste like chalk and feet. Definitely out of my league, considering my league involved a diet of takeout Thai food and experimental cupcakes from Sweet Eats.
    Most of the refrigerated food was still cold: economy-size tubs of margarine, enormous tubes of sliced American cheese, dozens of eggs, and five gallons of milk, ready to expire within the next week. The frozen foods didn’t fare as well without electricity, and I just about wept while throwing out enormous melted tubs of rocky road and mint chocolate chip ice cream. But buried under a thawing bag of chicken breasts I found a familiar green-and-yellow box.
    â€œAuntie Nina’s!” I exclaimed. “It’s the thinnest, limpest, most rubbery cheese pizza on the market!”
    Luke seemed disconcerted by my clutching the partially frozen pizza box to my chest like it was an orphaned